How long has it been since you last received an email that came out as absolute gibberish? I do not exactly remember myself, but it has been a long time. There used to be hundreds of different encodings for storing [...]]]> How long has it been since you last received an email that came out as absolute gibberish? I do not exactly remember myself, but it has been a long time. There used to be hundreds of different encodings for storing and indexing text on the internet. Since these encodings were different, they were not as such compatible with one another. “For example, on some PCs the character code 130 would display as é, but on computers sold in Israel it was the Hebrew letter Gimel (ג), so when Americans would send their résumés to Israel they would arrive as rגsumגs”, Joel Spolsky explains on his software blog.

Unicode was invented to solve this problem by encoding all human languages and making it universal as its name implies. So basically, according to Senior International Software Architect at Google, Mark Davis: “The more documents that are in Unicode, the less likely you will see mangled characters (what Japanese call mojibake) when you’re surfing the web.”

The latest figures from Google’s annual survey of the percentage of the webpages in their index that are in different encodings reveal another significant upward move for Unicode. It now accounts for more than 60 percent of all web encodings, which is indeed good news to the many of us who enjoy translation services that allow us to find information in almost any language. Subsequently, this helps content-providers such as marketers expand their potential audiences.

*Your mileage may vary: these figures may vary somewhat from what other search engines find. The graph lumps together encodings by script. We detect the encoding for each webpage; the ASCII pages just contain ASCII characters, for example.

Google has long been using Unicode as the company’s internal format for all the text it searches and processes and will soon be updating to the newest Version 6.1 with over 110,000 individual characters. According to Mark Davis, the search giant’s unified index probably would not exist had it not been to Unicode. Or as he puts it himself: “(…) it’d be a bit like not being able to convert between the hundreds of currencies in the world; commerce would be, well, difficult.”

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Google is dominating the global desktop search marketplace, with its current market share standing at 67%, according to Trefis. While it is good to dominate, it is even better to own – and this is almost what Google does when [...]]]> Google is dominating the global desktop search marketplace, with its current market share standing at 67%, according to Trefis. While it is good to dominate, it is even better to own – and this is almost what Google does when it comes to global mobile search. According to Statcounter, Google delivers a staggering 97% of all mobile searches worldwide today. The reliability can be questioned, however many credible sources agree that Google’s global mobile market share is greater than 90%.

Mobile advertising revenues set to explode

The future impact of mobile can no longer be questioned due to the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, but in case there are still a few sceptics out there, the following will most likely help to change that perception. With mobile broadband connections already outnumbering fixed broadband 2:1, it is easy to see why some experts predict that mobile web usage will overtake that of PCs within a relatively short amount of time. According to Gartner, mobile advertising revenues will increase dramatically over the next four years (see table below). Although the estimated figures also include revenues for display, audio and video ads, the highest revenue will come from search and locations ads, Gartner predicts.

Source: Gartner (June 2011)

Should the Champagne already be flowing at Google’s corporate headquarters?

Being the undisputed king of mobile search, this is indeed fantastic news to the executives at Google (the fact that it is absolutely no surprise to them is a completely different matter). Obviously, Google is in a very enviable position – but that being said – the Champagne should be put on hold for a while if the objective is to maintain its superior position in the market.

According to mobiThinking, “mobile subscribers in the developed world has reached saturation point with at least one cell phone subscription per person. This means market growth is being driven by demand in the developing world, led by rapid mobile adoption in China and India, the world’s most populous nations. These two countries collectively added 300 million new mobile subscriptions in 2010 – that’s more than the total mobile subscribers in the US.”

With 30% of the world’s mobile users living in India and China, and mobile subscriptions rapidly approaching 1 billion in each country, these markets will prove vital future battlefields. While Google’s position in India is dominant with a market share from over 95%, Chinese search giant, Baidu, has gradually been gaining market share in China, largely at the expense of Google. Baidu has around 75-80% of the search market share in China and its leading position, which has been consolidated since Google pulled out of the country in 2010, gives Baidu the upper hand in terms of reaping the huge financial gains related to the rapidly growing Chinese mobile market.

Another player that Google should be concerned about is Yandex. The Russian search engine is leading in its domestic market – Europe’s largest internet market – and the company’s recent purchase of a NAVTEQ digital maps license consolidates its ambitions to grow the mobile area. Google’s mobile search “ownership” is being challenged and the first shots have just been fired. Now, let the games begin.

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Geo-targeting is a common problem for organizations with an international website, who are targeting multiple languages and regions around the world. Making sure the right user sees the right content at the right time is the goal – but achieving [...]]]> Geo-targeting is a common problem for organizations with an international website, who are targeting multiple languages and regions around the world. Making sure the right user sees the right content at the right time is the goal – but achieving that is not always easy. How do you ensure that all your UK customers aren’t seeing prices in dollars or that your Spanish users aren’t seeing product pages that are only available in Peru?

Well Google has recognised these challenges and has adapted the way website owners can signal the intended recipients of web content. It may appear confusing at first – it did for me at least – and does need careful implementation but Google is offering a helping hand to marketers struggling with geo-targeting and duplication issues.

There are several excellent explanations of what has changed and how it can be implemented on SearchEngineLand and SearchEngineWatch so I won’t replicate that here, but there are two scenarios where this new markup will apply:

• Websites targeting multiple regions with very similar content in the same language (e.g. the US, the UK and Australia in English)
• Websites that have fully translated content, targeting multiple markets (e.g. German, French and Spanish pages)

This change is mainly applicable to international websites hosted on dotcoms, with subdomains for each market rather than those on local domains, which clearly target a specific market. While local domains provide clear signal to both search engines and users that the site is locally relevant, and therefore, are is still a recommended strategy, Google’s changes will improve the targeting for dotcoms.

Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa will be speaking at the International Search Summit at SMX West, where she will be discussing how to implement the rel=”alternate” hreflang markup and sharing examples of when to use it, as well as answering delegate questions.

The International Search Summit will be held on Monday February 27^th, as part of SMX West. It focuses entirely on international and multilingual search and social marketing and sessions will include Global Domain Strategies, Spanish SEO, Global Social Media, and The Other Search Engines.

Early Bird Rates expire on Saturday January 28^th.

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As a board member of SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Association and a multilingual internet marketer, I need to weigh in on many things when I consult my clients and one of them is what search engine to choose [...]]]> As a board member of SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Association and a multilingual internet marketer, I need to weigh in on many things when I consult my clients and one of them is what search engine to choose to market through.

As a SEMPO board member, I also need to be aware of things such as the FTC’s investigation into Google and this prompted me to think “how can an organization like Google be reviewed, how can a company that relies only on its IP (intellectual property) be examined without having to yield and explain their algorithm and what is then left when the chef has given the secret spice in the award winning recipe?” Not much.

There are so many search engines out there including Yahoo!, Bing (now powering Yahoo! in many locations around the world), Ask and some regional ones such as Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia. You are actually likely to find literally hundreds of them.

Why then do most of the internet users around the globe start their online searches with Google? What makes Google better (or worse) than its competitors?  What is it that makes Google so special that even in languages that are considered hard to crack, such as my native language Icelandic, is Google superior to home-made engines that should at least give Google some contest and a run for their money?

In simple terms, Google gives the people the answers they’re looking for – it may be the latest news, information on a product or process, or the sellers of merchandise or services – but Google has everything in its massive database, everything needed to fulfill the needs of the user and they return, in most cases, the most relevant results based on my experience and tests conducted regularly at my company.

Google algorithms actually seem to understand what the users have in mind and do return relevant and excellent search results. But how does one define excellent search results? Perhaps, you can wind back to 1996 when search on AltaVista and Ask Jeeves comprised short tailed queries. You had to search manually through pages and pages of results before finding anything that made sense for you. It was Google that changed all that. Thanks to its superior search algorithms, you rarely need to go beyond the results of first page for any search.

Companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo have been gunning for Google’s level of search relevance for years. Certainly they do have access to talent for developing great algorithms but still Google continues to rule and is the favourite search engine for all.

There is a lot of hard work that goes behind Google results you are so accustomed to. The search engine makes up to 500 changes to search algorithms every year where each change aims to give better and more relevant results to users. It knows that users come to search engines to help them sift through all the information on the web and not every site can appear at the top of the results.

Certain websites complain that frequent changes in Google algorithms cause them to lose their ranking and traffic. But Google does provide huge information to websites on the techniques to improve their own performance through tools like the Google Webmaster Tools.

Google has also impacted technological innovation in positive ways. Its well-known Android mobile platform has sparked new improvements in mobile devices. Also its web browser Chrome helped to initiate innovation in the otherwise inactive browser domain.

Google’s search quality team has worked hard to develop algorithms that give better visibility to small and local business home pages. It was observed that web pages of small and medium business enterprises got buried or lost amidst big brand names on the web. But with Google publishing results based on local searches, they have better chances of reaching the top of search results. The search engine leader keeps small businesses in mind while improving and testing its new algorithms.

The biggest problem that small businesses face is that they do not have a website to reflect in results. But even they get the required support from Google through features like Google Places and Google Maps.  And Google’s new “Getting America’s Business Online” initiative is helping bring even more businesses online. This initiative actually interests me and I hope that they roll it out in more countries.

Based on what I have experienced and seems to be Google’s only consideration is to give the best answers to users’ queries – without any political viewpoints or advertising dollars. Indeed it also claims that free organic listings are clicked more often than PPC ads.

Sometimes the best answer to a query may be among one of the traditional “ten blue links.” But there are instances where it can also be a news article, sports score, stock quote, flight timing, video or a map — and Google can place it above other results if that’s what the user needs!

The bottom line is that no chef will give out their secret ingredient nor should they be forced to. The secret behind Google’s global success is that they serve their users in a simple and straight forward manner the right relevant results and while they do that they have the upper hand.

The user is wise enough to distinguish between relevant and non -relevant results.

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Russian search engine Yandex isn’t resting on its laurels following its successful IPO last month but continuing to consolidate its leading position in the Russian market through a collaboration with fellow Russian engine Rambler.

From 23rd June, Rambler will be using [...]]]> Russian search engine Yandex isn’t resting on its laurels following its successful IPO last month but continuing to consolidate its leading position in the Russian market through a collaboration with fellow Russian engine Rambler.

From 23rd June, Rambler will be using Yandex to power its search results,  as well as joining the Yandex.Direct ad network, however it will also continue to show ads placed on Begun, an alternative advertising platform in which it has controlling interest. The partnership will enable advertisers to increase their reach and appear in front of new customers.

Figures from LiveInternet.ru in March 2011 show that Rambler’s search share in Russia had dropped to just 2%, compared with the 26% it held in 2005. This is in contrast to Google, who only had 5% share in 2005, which has now increased to 22%. The Silicon Valley search giant still has a long way to go to make any impact on Yandex, which has 65%.

Yandex has also been gaining ground in other Russian speaking markets, namely Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. It is yet to overtake Google for the majority share in those countries, but its understanding and handling of the complex Russian language makes it an increasingly popular choice in Russian-speaking markets.

Yandex intends to continue to focus solely on Russian markets, and there are no plans for the engine to roll out into other markets. As Co-Founder Arkady Volozh said, “We still have huge room to grow. The Russian advertising market is projected to triple in the next several years”.  The partnership with Rambler is further proof of Yandex’s intention to dominate its home market – and Google now has an even greater fight on its hands to increase its presence -and revenue – in Russia.

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It hasn’t been a good year for Google in China, and the search engine has suffered another blow this week when China’s most popular portal Sina stopped using Google’s search box on its website.  Sina, which is China’s third most [...]]]> It hasn’t been a good year for Google in China, and the search engine has suffered another blow this week when China’s most popular portal Sina stopped using Google’s search box on its website.  Sina, which is China’s third most popular website and has almost 1 billion page views daily has stated that its contract with Google has come to an end, and that it intends to use its own search technology going forward.

Google has seen its market share diminish in China since March 2010 when it withdrew from the country and began to service Chinese users from Hong Kong, to avoid the Chinese government’s strict censorship regulations.  Discord between the two has been rife ever since, with Google claiming only last week that its gmail email service was  being blocked in China, an allegation which the government denied. And with its main search rival Baidu increasing its search share continuously (it now has around 75% share), Google is very clearly the poor relation in Chinese search – and in the world’s largest internet market of over 420 million users, that is of some significance.

How the search giant will attempt to recover some market share in China, or whether it will even try, remains to be seen.

Attendees at the International Search Summit @ SMX Advanced in Seattle will hear from Cui Min, Senior Product Manager at Baidu on search marketing in China. Early Bird rates are still available.

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Eastern Europe, The Middle East and Africa are all regions that are rapidly developing when it comes to web use and becoming increasingly popular targets for global organisations.

We speak to Google’s Steffen Ehrhardt ahead of the [...]]]> Eastern Europe, The Middle East and Africa are all regions that are rapidly developing when it comes to web use and becoming increasingly popular targets for global organisations.

We speak to Google’s Steffen Ehrhardt ahead of the International Search Summit Munich to find out more about targeting these  emerging markets, display advertising and global search in general.

As an Emerging Market Specialist, you focus particularly on Central & Eastern Europe, The Middle East and North Africa. What are the main online trends you are seeing in these markets at the moment?

More and more people are going online but the big difference to Western Europe is that in Emerging Markets more people go online via mobile devices.  Especially in countries where there is a poor landline infrastructure mobile devices are key for online access and with all the new high-end devices a lot more people have  the opportunity to go online for the first time. So one interesting development that is happening because of this are a lot of innovations around mobile e.g. m-banking. Another interesting trend is for example the creation of content in non-English languages – Arabic is currently the fastest growing language on the web.

How do these markets differ from more developed online markets say in Western Europe? What do marketers targeting countries in these regions need to be aware of?

Generally you can say that Western European markets are a lot more developed in direct online transactions, so have also a lot more direct response online campaigns, mainly because conversion rates are easier to track.  Emerging markets often lack a standardized, trusted form of payment, clearly defined ICT regulations etc. so direct transactions are less often made online. Also competition and user  interests and behaviour can heavily vary from market to market.

You’re also part of the Google’s display team – how does display compare to other online advertising mediums in EMEA in terms of usage? Has there been an increase? Does it vary much by region/country?

Display is currently getting a lot of attention and more and more people realise the potential display advertising has. Growth rates in display are really impressive globally and in a lot of markets it is growing even faster than for example search advertising. I think advertisers are realizing the effect of having a holistic view on online advertising so aligning search with display and other online advertising activities. Display offers a lot of different solutions today like Video, Dynamic Ads or Remarketing that combined with creativity can deliver great results. Usage of display in general varies a lot from market to market e.g. in some Middle Eastern countries display is more important in the whole advertising mix than in some Western European markets.

In your opinion, how should organisations be using display as part of their international online strategy? How does it integrate with other online tools & techniques?

First of all you have to define  a clear strategy of what you want to achieve with the internationalisation of your products or services and if you have an offline business you have to make sure activities are aligned cross channel. Online definitely makes it easier to internationalise but I still see a lot of companies totally underestimating the work that is required when you want to go into other markets. You can not just copy a successful campaign, translate it and hope it will work in another countries – you need to know market specifics, what are established forms of payment, regulations that may affect your business etc. With regards to tools – there is a wide range of great tools in the market, from Google I’d like to specifically highlight: AdPlanner, Remarketing, Global Market Finder Tool, Insights for Search and of course Analytics.

If you could give one prediction for what we should expect in 2011 – either in search and/or display – what would it be?

The biggest growth in 2011 that I see is in the following areas: Mobile, Local, Social and Video & Dynamic Advertising. So my one prediction is that the combination of all these areas opens up an incredible potential for advertisers where the user will also see a lot of benefits.

Finally, why should people attend the International Search Summit?

There are a lot of great online events but most of them are focused on what is happening in a specific markets or in a specific region. International Search Summit is for me personally a key event you have to attend when you want to be be successful in online marketing across several markets globally, at the same time. There are a lot of roadblocks you need to be aware of – campaigns can be successful in one market but not in another one and the International Search Summit sessions will help you to minimise risks and to understand what is required to be successful in all markets.

Steffen will be speaking on the Impact of Display on Search at the International Search Summit Munich on April 4th. Also speaking at the event are Evgeny Lomize, Yandex; Cedric Chambaz, Microsoft; Florian Reisinger, BMW; Andy Atkins-Krüger, WebCertain and Thomas de Buhr, YouTube.

Tickets for the Summit, which will take place alongside SMX Munich, are still available.

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Search Engine Marketing industry web statistics key reference comScore’s recently issued its ‘2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review’ report
comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni says ‘2010 was a very positive year for the digital media [...]]]> Search Engine Marketing industry web statistics key reference comScore’s recently issued its ‘2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review’ report
comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni says ‘2010 was a very positive year for the digital media industry, highlighted by a strong rebound in e-commerce spending , significant innovation and increased demand for online advertising, and an explosion in digital content consumption across multiple platforms. As we embark on a promising 2011, marketers must have a sound understanding of the digital media landscape and how it is changing if they hope to capitalize on key trends that can drive their business into the future.’

Some raw facts:

• Tthe overall U.S.A e-commerce spending was $227.6 billion in 2010, up by 9 percent versus 2009.
• The USA travel e-commerce spending increased by 6 percent versus 2009, reaching a healthy $85.2 billion, while non-travel retail e-commerce spending rose by  10 percent to $142.5 billion for 2010.
• Social networking continued its rise to stardom in 2010, 90 per cent of U.S.A. Internet users now visit a social networking site once a month, and their average time spent on those social networking sites is greater than 4 hours. Fact: 1 out of every 8 minutes online is spent on Facebook.
• Compared to 2009, the U.S.A. Search Engine Marketing market grew 12 percent in 2010.
• The U.S.A ad display market totals 4.9 trillion display ads in 2010 with a DAI – display ad impressions -  increasing by 23 percent in December 2010 versus December 2009. Social networking websites, now represent more than one third of all display ad impressions, those social networking sites drive the ad display market up.
• In December 2010, the average American spent over 14 hours watching online video, a 12 percent growth versus 2009, and streamed 201 videos, an 8-percent increase compared to 2009 figures.
• Smartphones reached 1 in 4 mobile subscribers and 3G penetration crossed the 50 percent mark. Over 47 percent of mobile subscribers are interactive Internet media users, growing by 8 per cents versus 2009.

Bing is the big winner of the 2010 search engine industry, growing by 29 per cent more searches in 2010 versus 2009. As for the King Google, leader of the search engine industry in 2009, also grew its search queries by 13% in 2010.
The number of people using search engines was up by 4 per cent and the number of searches per searcher rose by 8% versus 2009. Bing’s market share is on the up, but not at Google’s expense.

Naturally, the search engine industry has changed drastically in 2010 with Bing powering search on Yahoo, and Google providing search results to AOL and other network partners.
End of 2010, comScore valued Google’s total share of the USA search engine market to 70%, while Bing was at 24%.

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China Mobile, the world’s biggest cellphone carrier and Xinhua, China’s official state run news agency, signed an agreement to establish a new Internet search engine and international media company, “Search Engine New Media International Communications Co.” It was not [...]]]> China Mobile, the world’s biggest cellphone carrier and Xinhua, China’s official state run news agency, signed an agreement to establish a new Internet search engine and international media company, “Search Engine New Media International Communications Co.” It was not immediately clear whether this new venture would cover mobile search only or develop a traditional search engine as well.

There are more than 420 million Internet users in China with an additional 800 million mobile phone subscribers. China’s online search market is currently dominated by Baidu which according to Analysys International controls 70 percent of China’s market share. Google ranks in second place with 24.2 percent falling from 30.9 percent in the first quarter. falling from 30.9 percent in the first quarter.

In the mobile search space Baidu leads with about percent share, followed Easou, a WAP-based mobile search partnering with Chinese Web portal Sohu.com, with 17 percent and Google with about 12 percent.

Google pulled out of China earlier this year, complaining about online attacks that appeared to be coming from hackers within China. It now operates its search engine from Hong Kong but Google recently renewed its license to operate its search services in China.

Xinhua New Agency Vice President Zhou Xisheng was quoted as saying “Search engines, which have powerful information integration abilities, play an increasingly important role in disseminating information and influencing public opinion.”

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As some may have noticed in The Netherlands at this moment politicians are battling for the attention of the voters. In two weeks time the Dutch are voting for [...]]]> As some may have noticed in The Netherlands at this moment politicians are battling for the attention of the voters. In two weeks time the Dutch are voting for a new government and the many debates online even made several Twitter topics trending worldwide.

The elections have also reached the attention of Google. Google Netherlands has launched a special search engine with which users can search through the election programs of the different Dutch parties.

Google doesn’t stop there, they also launched a special gadget which shows the trends around the elections, how much do people search for the current prime minister, which themes are discussed and how are the parties doing.

Finally the Dutch have looked at the US election closely and are also introducing a special YouTube channel. Dutch broadcaster NOS together with YouTube are organizing a YouTube debate.

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